FINITE-ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF TRANSIENT FLUID-FLOW WITH FREE-SURFACE USING VOF (VOLUME-OF-FLUID) METHOD AND ADAPTIVE-GRID

The VOF method is adopted for the finite element analysis of transient fluid flow with a free surface. in particular, an adaptation techniqu e for generating an adaptive grid is incorporated to capture a higher resolution of the free surface configuration. An adaptive grid is crea ted through the refinement and mergence of elements. In this domain th e elements in the surface region are made finer than those in the rema ining regions for more efficient computation. Also, three techniques b ased on the VOF method are newly developed to increase the accuracy of the analysis, namely the filling pattern, advection treatment and fre e surface smoothing techniques. Using the proposed numerical technique s, radial flow with a point source and the collapse of a dam are analy sed. The numerical results agree well with the theoretical solutions a s well as with the experimental results. Through comparisons with the numerical results of several cases using different grids, the efficien cy of the proposed technique is verified. (C) 1998 by John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.